Lexington Books
Pages: 206
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9
978-1-4985-6754-1 • Hardback • January 2019 • $95.00 • (£65.00)
978-1-4985-6755-8 • eBook • January 2019 • $90.00 • (£60.00)
Stefan Brandt is professor at the University of Graz.
Rubén Cenamor is PhD candidate and research fellow at the University of Barcelona.
Introduction: Ecomasculinities: Negotiating Male Gender Identity in U.S. Fiction
Stefan L. Brandt & Rubén Cenamor
Part I: The Birth of Literary Ecomasculinities
1. The Wild Ones: Ecomasculinities in the American Literary Imagination
Stefan L. Brandt
2. Men in Nature: a critical analysis of the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement
Paul M. Pulé and Martin Hultman
3. Eco-men from the Outer Space? Mars and Utopian Masculinities in Fin de Siècle Literature
Alessandra Calanchi
Part II: Ecomasculinities in American Literature from 1950s to 1990s
4. A New Man Emerges: Masculinities Beyond Capitalism and the Eco-Man in 1950s’ America
Rubén Cenamor
5. Gender Blending and Psychic Phenomena: Forming Ecomasculinities in Gravity’s Rainbow
Victoria Addis
6. Cormac McCarthy’s Eco-men: the loss of the natural world in the twentieth century American landscape
Layla Hendow
7. Aging Men in Nature: Jane Smiley’s Ecocritical Exploration of Masculinities Across the Life Course in A Thousand Acres
Teresa Requena
Part III: The Eco-Man in Contemporary Cinema, TV and Media
8. The Film Star as Eco-warrior: Harrison Ford Saves the Planet (and this Time It is for Real)
Virginia Luzón
9. True Detective: Not Flourishing yet, but Maybe Germinating.
Bill Phillips
10. Polar Bears and Electric Plugs: Green Shopping and Twenty-First Century Queer American Masculinity
Evangeline M. Heiliger
About the Contributors
If American masculinity has been historically grounded in "taming" nature, and environmentalism synonymous with "feminized regulation," then how can men articulate a relationship with nature? We hardly need an eco-masculinist hero—"Eco-Man to the Rescue!"—and these careful readings of recent American fiction show men's fitful efforts to define a relationship as cohabitors on an increasingly fragile planet. Ecomascuinities, carefully constructed, are a necessary part of our survival.
— Michael Kimmel, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Stony Brook University
To critically interrogate the historically ‘unmarked category’ of ecomasculinities is to strive for better understandings of the Western imagination and its ecological malaise. This rich volume highlights the importance of the literary in the urgent endeavour of reformulating relationships between men and the more-than-human. It will inform timely debates in ecocriticism, gender studies and cultural studies.
— Richard Twine, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences, Co-Director of Centre for Human-Animal Studies (CfHAS), Edge Hill University
Ecomasculinities addresses a significant gap in both the masculinities literature and eco-criticism. Informed by ecofeminist critiques of men’s exploitation of nature and the links between dominant forms of masculinity and ecological destruction, the editors and contributors draw upon fictional representations of diverse masculinities to envisage new non-exploitative relations between men and nature. In doing so, they provide inspiration for men in the real world to transform dominant masculinities and to foster a feminist-informed ethic of care for the environment and all living beings.
— Bob Pease, Honorary Professor, School of Humanities and Social Science, Deakin University